Studies of Human Inference Using On-line Testing

NCT05848752 | Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: 25-2034
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 500
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The investigators will record behavioral responses from human participants on crowdsourcing platform Prolific to identify the decision strategies humans apply short-term, long-term, and multi timescale (across both timescales) inference tasks. Participants will perform a flexible decision-making task (described in Research Strategy Aim 1) in which subjects must determine which of two locations a series of evidence (package drops) came from. Subjects must 1) report the current location, 2) predict the next location. The investigators will record these responses, the number (and sequence) of evidence, and the response time (time from the end of trial until the response) for each trial. Subjects will perform all blocks (parameters and number of blocks to be determined by inference model development and testing prior to task development) so that we can compare responses at each timescale. Since participants participate voluntarily for small sums of money (around $12/ hour based on duration of task) and the investigators' previous studies have collected over 200 subjects in a matter of days, they will aim to record behavioral data from 1000 subjects. This number allows them to address the broad range of subject variability expected using Bayesian statistical methods such as Bayes factors.

Conditions

Behavior

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Binary Behavioral Decision Responses

  Subject- provided choices (responses on the computer) between two presented options

  Through task completion on each task trial, approximately 1-5x/ minute for approximate 30 minutes

Study Arms (1)

Environmental Feature Experiment

EXPERIMENTAL

Behavioral: psychophysics

Interventions

psychophysics BEHAVIORAL

Subjects will be shown two locations and a series of package drops that switch between the two locations with an unknown frequency. Subjects must identify which location is current in use and which location will be selected next. Subjects know that the frequency of the location changes is different in each block but not its exact value

Environmental Feature Experiment

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Adult Prolific participants who have a 95% approval rating and achieve a minimum score of 80% on our pre-test,
• Speak fluent English
• Are in the US.

You may not qualify if:

• None

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Colorado, Boulder: lead
• University of Pennsylvania: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

University of Colorado Boulder

Boulder, Colorado, 80309, United States

RECRUITING

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Behavior

Interventions

Psychophysics

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures; Diagnosis; Behavioral Sciences; Behavioral Disciplines and Activities

Study Officials

• Tahra Eissa

  University of Colorado, Denver

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Tahra Eissa

CONTACT

(303) 492-6974; tahra.eissa@colorado.edu

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Assistant Professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: April 19, 2023
• First Posted: May 8, 2023
• Study Start: February 15, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): August 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): June 30, 2028
• Last Updated: May 18, 2026

Record last verified: 2026-05

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, ANALYTIC CODE
• Time Frame: The data will be made available following publication.
• Access Criteria: IPD will be available on OSF to all who are interested.

Locations

US (1)